Assets of man with suspected UDA links frozen

The North's Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) has frozen £200,000 (€291,000) worth of assets belonging to a Co Antrim man suspected of involvement in loyalist criminality.

The assets include two houses, a boat and more than 20 bank accounts and belong to a man and wife from Newtownabbey on the outskirts of north Belfast.

The ARA said it believed the man,, who is suspected of having links to the Ulster Defence Association, accumulated the assets through unlawful activities.

He was convicted of blackmail in October 2003 and is serving a prison sentence.